LONDON: Members of the Afghan Women’s Development Football Team, who were forced to flee from the Taliban, have been told they can relocate to the UK.
The 35-strong team, aged 13-19, along with their families and coaching staff, fled to Pakistan in August where they were granted temporary emergency visas, due to expire on Oct. 11.
The team is being financially supported by the ROKiT Foundation while in Pakistan, and has been offered financial, educational and housing assistance by Andrea Radrizzani, owner of Premier League side Leeds United.
A UK government spokesman said: “We are working to finalise visas to the Afghan Women’s Development Team and look forward to welcoming them to the UK shortly.”
Siu-Anne Marie Gill, CEO of the ROKiT Foundation, said: “This is fantastic news, and we are most grateful to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel for this life-saving decision.”
The senior women’s team has already been taken in by Australia, with the junior team being allowed to move to Portugal.
But the development team was left in limbo after the chaos that ensued when Kabul fell to the Taliban.
They were due to be airlifted to Qatar, but were told to leave the vicinity of Kabul Airport two hours before a suicide bomb attack on Aug. 26 killed dozens of people trying to flee Afghanistan.
They eventually fled over the border into neighboring Pakistan, where they were given shelter after the personal intervention of Prime Minister Imran Khan
Gill said the girls had feared that they would be sent back to Afghanistan were their visas to expire without an offer of refuge from a third country, and that they would face persecution there from the Taliban. “Seventy percent of them had received death threats,” Gill added. “They were terrified.”
The foundation’s Chairman Jonathan Kendrick told the BBC that he is “absolutely thrilled for them to have a second chance at life.”
He added: “This is a whole new world they are taking on and I’m sure with the football community supportive to their plight, they will settle in and be able to experience all of the joys life gives.”